Beginning Teachers’ Workplace Experiences: Perceptions of and Use of Support

This paper illuminates the experiences of beginning teachers using a participatory perspective approach and drawing on some of these teachers’ perceptions. We place the ‘subject’ of workplace learning research centrally in understanding the relatedness between workplaces and novice employees/trainees. This paper builds on previous work by the authors using semi-structured interviews with 17 beginning teachers in 19 schools that aim to better understand issues associated with beginning teacher retention. This study explores an application of a framework for evaluating workplaces as from expansive to restrictive learning environments, whilst examining individuals’ responses to and agency in these environments. In addition, these teachers’ personal networks were explored to idedntify how they shaped the teachers’ engagement with workplaces. This analysis revealed networks both internal and external to their schools, and hence a broader view of workplace than is often proposed. Together these analyses allowed an examination of the relatedness between individual beginning teachers and the schools they experienced. This paper identifies the significance of ontogeny and expectation that individuals bring to the workplace, along with individuals exhibiting different agency. These beginning teachers indicate how individuals can be proactive in creating more expansive learning environments for themselves through the utilisation of personal networks, even when these are not offered. This finding may have implications for beginning teachers to re-evaluate their potential to become empowered as they begin their careers

Examining beginning teachers' perceptions of workplace support

Purpose – This paper, taking a participatory perspective of learning, seeks to look at the interaction between individuals and their workplace, focusing on the perceptions of workplaces and self by beginning teachers in terms of support for their learning. Design/methodology/approach – The study presents an analysis of 37 interviews from 17 beginning teachers across 18 workplaces. Analysis used an adapted version of Evans and colleagues' expansive‐restrictive framework for evaluating workplaces, focusing on relational aspects. A matrix of congruence between individuals and their workplace is presented, highlighting the significance of personal networking. Findings – Although beginning teachers concluded that their workplaces were largely expansive, they also identified concerns regarding perceptions of support availability. Formal and informal support was recognized and the significance of outside school support, such as through the University Faculty, was noted even for teachers in post. Good “matches”, differential engagement with the same workplace and similar agency in different workplaces were identified. Practical implications – The matrix of congruence is offered as a tool to researchers and teacher educators interested in understanding how support is experienced by novice professionals. The study highlights the utility of taking a personal network perspective to conceiving workplaces as not necessarily bounded by locality or normative practices. This could offer opportunities for discourse leading to greater engagement by professionals in their own learning. Originality/value – The paper responds to calls that personal‐social processes in the workplace need further attention. The consideration of network perspectives, attending to informal aspects of social engagement, offers new understandings

Pedagogical approaches for technology-integrated science teaching

The two separate projects described have examined how teachers exploit computer-based technologies in supporting learning of science at secondary level. This paper examines how pedagogical approaches associated with these technological tools are adapted to both the cognitive and structuring resources available in the classroom setting. Four teachers participated in the first study, undertaken as part of the InterActive Education project in Bristol; all of them used multimedia simulations in their lessons. The second study presented was part of the wider SET-IT project in Cambridge; 11 teachers in eight schools were observed using multimedia simulations, data logging tools and interactive whiteboards. Teachers were interviewed in all cases to elicit their pedagogical thinking about their classroom use of ICT. The findings suggest that teachers are moving away from only using ‘real’ experiments in their practice. They are exploring the use of technologies to encourage students to engage in “What If” explorations where the outcomes of ‘virtual’ experiments can be immediately accessed, for example through using a simulation. However, this type of activity can serve just as a mechanism for revealing – and indeed reinforcing – students’ informal conceptions if cognitive conflict is not generated or remains unresolved. The teachers in our studies used simulations, data logging, projected animations and other dynamic digital resources as tools to encourage and support prediction and to demonstrate scientific concepts and physical processes – thereby ‘bridging the gap’ between scientific and informal knowledge. They also integrated technology carefully with other practical activities so as to support stepwise knowledge building, consolidation and application. Research of this kind has design implications for both curriculum-related activities and emerging computer-based learning technologies, in terms of helping us to understand how teachers capitalise upon the technology available in supporting students to construct links between scientific theory and empirical evidence